No internal democracy in Cong; BJP chiefs are picked on merit: Amit Shah

Global health experts on Wednesday said novel coronavirus is here to stay for more than a year and called for aggressive testing to prevent its spread.

In an interaction with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, health experts Professor Ashish Jha and Professor Johan Giesecke talked about the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the series being aired on Congress social media channels.

While Jha exuded confidence that a vaccine will be available in a year's time, Prof Giesecke said India should practice a lockdown that is as 'soft' as possible, as a severe lockdown will ruin its economy very quickly.

"When the economy is opened up after lockdown, you have to create confidence among people," Harvard health expert Ashish Jha told Gandhi.

Jha is a professor of Global Health at TH Chan School of Public Health and Director, Harvard Global Health institute.

He said coronavirus is a '12-18 months' problem and the world is not going to be free of this till 2021.

The expert also called for the need for aggressive testing strategy for high-risk areas.

Gandhi, while interacting with the experts, said life is going to change post COVID-19.

"If 9/11 was a new chapter, this will be a new book," he remarked.

Professor Johan Giesecke, former chief scientist, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said India should have a 'soft lockdown'.

"The situation that India is in, I think, you should have a soft lockdown, as soft as possible," he said.

"I think for India, you will ruin your economy very quickly if you have a severe lockdown. It is better, skip the lockdown, take care of the old and the frail...," he noted.

The Shopping Centres Association of India (SCAI) on Monday said the sector has lost over Rs 90,000 crore in the last two months, owing to the lockdown, and market players need much more than the repo rate cut and the loan moratorium extended by the RBI.

In a statement, the industry body said that the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) relief measures are not adequate to support the liquidity needs of the industry.

According to the SCAI, there is a common misconception that the shopping centres' industry is centred around metros and large cities with investments only from large developers, private equity players and foreign investors.

"However, the fact is that most malls are part of the SMEs or standalone developers. i.e. more than 550 are single owned by standalone developers out of the 650-odd organised shopping centres across the country and there are 1,000+ small centres in smaller cities," it said.

Amitabh Taneja, Chairman of SCAI said: "The organised retail industry is in distress and has not earned anything since the lockdown and their survival is at stake. While the extension of the loan moratorium talks about some relief on repayment but won't help the industry in liquidity."

He said that a long term beneficial plan from the government is much required to revive the sector.

"Being the most safe, accountable, and controlled environment, unfortunately, malls have not been permitted to open which will lead to job losses and might even shut shops for a lot of mall developers," Taneja said.

In its representations to the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India, the association has also pointed out that, in absence of financial package and stimulus from the RBI, over 500 shopping centres may go bankrupt, that may lead to the banking industry staring at NPAs of Rs 25,000 crore.

The industry body has put forward its recommendations and requests to the government. It had sought moratorium till March 2021 at the least in terms of repayment of bank loans, interest, EMI and so on, without levy of any penalties or penal interest.

It has also sought a one-time loan restructuring with lower rates of interest, permitted for shopping centres and a facilitative and forward-looking support provision of short-term financing options for a period of six to 12 months, at lower interest rates, to meet the increased working capital requirements.

Among other relaxations, it had also appealed for GST rebates to offset the losses on account of and for the period of closure of business.

It also said that interest rates should be brought down to "manageable levels" of 5-6% in view of the precarious financial situation.

New Delhi, Feb 28: The months of March, April and May are "likely to be warmer than normal" over northwest, west, central and parts of south India, the India Meteorological Department said today in its summer forecast.

Above normal heat wave conditions are also likely in the core heat wave (HW) zone during the season (March-May), the weather department said.

The core heat wave zone covers the states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana and parts of Maharashtra and coastal Andhra Pradesh.